It has taken a while, but Heyzap is making a real advertising business out of its mobile social network for gamers.

The company built a mobile social network where players would log in whenever they played a game and then see what their friends were playing too. This data was useful in targeting ads at the gamers, and it also helped with the discovery of new apps, which is the big problem in an age of stores with a couple of million apps.

About 18 months ago, Heyzap launched its advertising software development kit, which allowed developers to target ads at people who liked similar games. And that became Heyzap’s business. About 5,000 games are using the app SDK, and the company is expanding beyond games. And so far this year, Heyzap has been profitable, said Jude Gomila, cofounder of San Francisco-based Heyzap, in an interview with GamesBeat.

The company is on a revenue run rate of $13 million to $14 million a year now. And growth is expanding so fast that Gomila is targeting a run rate of $50 million or more.

“The app stores are not personalized for users,” Gomila said. “They are top ten lists for what everybody in the country wants. We do personalization of ads and get the right apps to the right users.”

Heyzap knows what you’re playing and what your friends are playing. It shows you static interstitial ads of other apps that you might like. If you have a good Internet connection, it will show you a video ad of an app.

“We think ads are fundamentally broken now,” Gomila said. “We try to make it much more personalized and figure out which users like which apps. It’s like a Netflix for apps, recommending games to you. Given our experience with users, we can do a better job.”

Heyzap has 20 people, and it is hoping to add five or six more to its staff.

Above: Heyzap ads

Image Credit: Heyzap

“We are hiring based on the revenues from the business,” Gomilla said.

It has taken a long time for Heyzap to get a stable business. Gomila founded the company with Immad Akhund in 2008 as a platform to support Flash games on the web. Heyzap shifted to mobile three years ago, and it turned off its Flash-based game platform at that time. The company has raised about $10 million from investors including Union Square Ventures and angels Naval Ravikant, Joshua Schachter, Chris Dixon, and Christina Brodbeck.

“I’ve been thinking about this market for six years now,” Gomilla said. “We kept our heads down and did lots of work.”

Lots of big companies are advertising through Heyzap. Those include Kabam, Gree, DeNA, King, Supercell, and Spotify. There are about 450 advertisers. The ads are getting billions of views.

Rivals include MoPub (Twitter), Chartboost, Burstly, Upsight, and Vungle. But Heyzap is growing fast. Last year’s revenues were about $4 million, and this year’s could be many times that number.

“We found what works, and that is good,” Gomila said. “We don’t have to raise money to grow the company. This is growing from within.”

]]>http://venturebeat.com/2014/04/30/heyzap-finds-a-profitable-business-in-showing-targeted-advertising-to-mobile-social-gamers/feed/01462484Heyzap finds a profitable business in showing targeted advertising to mobile social gamersPapayaMobile’s next product isn’t a game service. It’s a smart calendarhttp://venturebeat.com/2014/02/20/papayamobiles-next-product-isnt-a-game-its-a-smart-calendar/
http://venturebeat.com/2014/02/20/papayamobiles-next-product-isnt-a-game-its-a-smart-calendar/#respondThu, 20 Feb 2014 16:00:49 +0000http://venturebeat.com/?p=937481The company is taking the mobile social platform and applying it to a calendar, so you can schedule outings with friends more easily.
]]>

In the history of pivots, this seems like a big one. PapayaMobile made its name as a mobile social network platform for games. Now it is launching a new mobile calendar, dubbed the Kiwi Calendar.

Above: Kiwi Calendar

Image Credit: PapayaMobile

The switch may not be as big of a jump as it seems. The company is taking the mobile social platform and applying it to a calendar, so you can schedule outings with friends more easily. It is smart enough to recommend activities with people you know and balances work-heavy weeks with more exciting things to do.

The Beijing-based company’s chief executive, Si Shen, acknowledged in an email that her company’s mobile gamer social networking service (SNS) hadn’t been as sticky as expected when it came to retaining users.

“Our SNS caught like wildfire as we picked up as many 80 million users,” Shen wrote. “However, we realized that despite our vision for the product, the retention rate of the SNS was extremely low on both sides of the spectrum. Not to mention it was an uphill battle competing with the iOS Game Center.”

The company’s new smart social calendar is aimed at managing your work-life balance.

You can organize your week by color-coding your appointments. You can create a “label” for work appointments, and another label for entertainment. You can share calendars with friends, whose schedules show up in another kind of label.

The point isn’t to enable people to be more efficient at being workaholics by prioritizing work-related meetings. It is designed as a personal assistant that organizes your life outside the office.

Kiwi has a machine-learning algorithm and artificial intelligence that analyzes and understands a user’s routines, location, relationships, and interests. Kiwi suggests stimulating activities to do during a user’s free time.

Above: Kiwi Calendar

Image Credit: PapayaMobile

“If we took a hard look at our calendars, we’ll find that the blocks of time absent from our agendas is time for ourselves to just enjoy life,” said Shen, in a statement. “With many of us committed to demanding jobs, we’re reluctant to pencil in ‘fun’ because we struggle to find a moment for anything else. Kiwi Calendar swoops in to squeeze in an hour or two for exciting activities.”

In an email, Shen added, “PapyaMobile’s vision from day one has been to change people’s lives – in fact, that’s been PapayaMobile’s mantra and has contributed to our rapid growth in the past six years.”

In 2012, the company launched its cross-promotion tool, AppFlood. Meanwhile, Kiwi Calendar started out as a side project a couple of years ago, as the team saw that digital calendars hadn’t really evolved much. They wanted to make calendars smart and social.

Kiwi Calendar suggests activities for blocks of free time, and it offers the option to share schedules with friends. That makes scheduling a weekly bowling night with friends a lot easier. Someone who wants to organize an outing can identify a free time slot for all parties and engage participants in chat using in-app messaging, photo sharing, and emoticons.

Kiwi Calendar can also suggest public events such as concerts, meetups, movies, and other events happening in a local area that Facebook friends are planning to attend. The app also lets users see movie showtimes at nearby locations. And it lets you view past and future events, recommendations, friends’ events, and the weather forecast.

It also syncs with Google Calendar, Facebook, and LinkedIn.

PapayaMobile will be facing a lot of competition, including Tempo AI, Google, 24me, Any.do, and Boomerang.

]]>http://venturebeat.com/2014/02/20/papayamobiles-next-product-isnt-a-game-its-a-smart-calendar/feed/0937481PapayaMobile’s next product isn’t a game service. It’s a smart calendarYahoo and Japan’s DeNA expand PC social gaming alliance to mobile deviceshttp://venturebeat.com/2012/11/08/yahoo-and-japans-dena-expand-pc-social-gaming-alliance-to-mobile-devices/
http://venturebeat.com/2012/11/08/yahoo-and-japans-dena-expand-pc-social-gaming-alliance-to-mobile-devices/#respondFri, 09 Nov 2012 07:30:11 +0000http://venturebeat.com/?p=571954Smartphones and tablets are gaining attention in Japan, and this deal should allow both companies to take advantage of this trend.
]]>

Yahoo and Japan’s mobile social gaming network DeNA have expanded their business alliance to more deeply integrate their PC social gaming offerings with each other.

Under the deal, Yahoo Japan and DeNA will expand their collaboration on PCs to smartphones and tablets. Such smart devices are spreading rapidly in Japan, where DeNA has a huge multibillion-dollar business providing social games on mobile devices.

Both Yahoo Japan and DeNA will interconnect user IDs, so you can log into one service and easily move to the other company’s service. They will also interconnect their loyalty point systems on smartphones.

The two companies have had an alliance in Japan for two years. Dubbed Yahoo Mobage, the platform is a social game destination on the PC. It is now one of Japan’s largest PC-based social game platforms with more than 9 million registered users. Yahoo Japan has more than 26 million active user IDs. The two companies said they will jointly develop PC games for the Yahoo Mobage platform. Yahoo Japan also partnered with DeNA’s rival, mobile social gaming network Gree.

Founders Neil Young and Bob Stevenson have left the Ngmoco division of Japan’s DeNA mobile social network company. That’s a big change for the organization, since DeNA acquired Ngmoco for more than $403 million in the fall of 2010 as part of its plan to move into the U.S. market.

Clive Downie, the vice president of studios for Ngmoco, takes over as chief executive of the San Francisco subsidiary. Young and Stevenson are “moving on to their next adventure,” according to DeNA. The changes are noteworthy, since DeNA is a multibillion-dollar company in Japan and has high hopes of conquering mobile social games in the U.S. It has a big hit with Rage of Bahamut (made by Cygames) right now, but the battle for the mobile gaming market is nowhere near over.

DeNA had $1.4 billion in revenues last year and has a catalog of 77 games across multiple platforms. Young will remain on the DeNA board and “fully supports the executive transition.”

In addition to Young and Stevenson, Ngmoco’s founders include Alan Yu and Joe Keene.

“Over the last several years, I’ve had the opportunity to run many different parts of our organization, which has afforded me full visibility into our operations,” Downie said. “As we move into our next stage of growth, with our business starting to fire on all cylinders here in the West, I’m incredibly excited about our prospects and our mission to become the number one social mobile platform company in the world.”

Downie headed several aspects of Ngmoco’s business, including marketing and live teams. Before joining Ngmoco, he spent 15 years at Electronic Arts. He will be responsible for all of the Western operations of Mobage, DeNA’s mobile social games platform.

“As our Western business moves from its platform building and global integration phase to awareness building, publishing, and operating a robust portfolio of games that entertain the world, Clive’s talents and understanding of our business make him the perfect person to drive Mobage in the West,” said DeNA CEO Isao Moriyasu.

“We couldn’t be happier that Clive, our long time colleague and friend is taking the reins of the Western business by becoming the new CEO,” Young said. “Our confidence in Clive and the momentum of DeNA’s business in the West makes this the right moment for us to move on to our next adventure.”

Its numbers are still small in the overall mobile game market, and it isn’t making money yet. But Gree‘s North American game business grew 38 percent in the second quarter. That’s a sign that the company is making progress in its quest to become a worldwide mobile social gaming giant.

The Japanese company is unveiling its North American numbers for the first time today. In the second quarter, it reported revenues of $16.87 million, up 38 percent from the previous quarter of $12.15 million. In the first six months of the year, North American revenue was $29.0 million. Overall, Gree generated net income of $608.8 million on revenues of $2 billion for the fiscal year ending June 30.

The North American division is a major strategic expansion for Gree, which is in a race with rival Japanese gaming firm DeNA to dominate the market. Gree bought mobile gamemaker Funzio during the quarter for $210 million.

Naoki Aoyagi, the chief executive of Gree International, said in an interview with GamesBeat that two of the strongest titles are Funzio’s Modern War for the iPad and Gree’s Zombie Jombie. Funzio titles showed a 27 percent increase from the first quarter and a 23 percent revenue increase since the acquisition.

“Investors are very interested in what we are doing in the U.S. and global markets,” said Aoyagi (pictured right).

Aoyagi declined to say if the U.S. business is making money. He said that the company is focused on revenue growth now. That probably means the company isn’t making money and it is spending heavily on marketing its games. Earlier, Gree said it would spend a whopping $50 million on mobile game marketing. But despite rumors to the contrary, Gree isn’t spending all of that money at once, said Aoyagi.

Early on, Gree was spending a lot to explore the performance results of various marketing channels. Now it knows what works better, and it can spend more efficiently, said Aoyagi said, who noted that Modern War iPad and Zombie Jombie are both showing average revenue per daily active user (ARPDAU) above $1. About 40 percent of revenue comes from Gree’s iPad apps. Overall, Gree is publishing on iOS (iPod Touch, iPhone, and iPad), Google Play, and Amazon. All together, Gree had six games out in the second quarter.

“We just started, and we have a lot of games in the works,” said Aoyagi. “July was our highest monthly revenue number to date.”

Aoyagi believes that the fragmented mobile game market will hit its stride and see a dominant player emerge in the next 18 months. That’s why his company is in a rush and spending strategically to expand. Six years ago, the Japanese market was tiny. Japan’s mobile social game market is smaller in terms of the number of users, but those users are spending so much money that the market has reached $4 billion to $5 billion in annual revenue. Gree has gained a multibillion-dollar valuation and more than a billion in revenues solely on the success of the Japanese market. The U.S., logically, should be a lot bigger.

Mark Pincus, the chief executive of Zynga, said at our GamesBeat 2012 conference that the mobile game market still needs a triggering event to generate as much revenue per game as the Facebook social game market. But Aoyagi believes that the companies that invest now will be the winners.

“If you don’t invest up front, you will miss the whole opportunity,” he said. “I think everybody should make a big bet on mobile.”

]]>http://venturebeat.com/2012/08/16/gree-grows-north-american-mobile-game-revenue-38-percent-in-q2/feed/0510795Gree grows North American mobile game revenue by 38% in Q2EA goes after CityVille with today’s launch of SimCity Socialhttp://venturebeat.com/2012/07/05/ea-goes-after-cityville-with-todays-launch-of-simcity-social/
http://venturebeat.com/2012/07/05/ea-goes-after-cityville-with-todays-launch-of-simcity-social/#commentsThu, 05 Jul 2012 17:45:14 +0000http://venturebeat.com/?p=484794In a bid to unseat Zynga’s CityVille game on Facebook, Electronic Arts has launched SimCity Social today. The new city-building simulation game represents the culmination of a large team of developers at EA’s Maxis and Playfish game studios, and it’s EA’s big counterattack against Zynga’s CityVille, which has 27.6 million monthly active users and is still the […]
]]>

The new city-building simulation game represents the culmination of a large team of developers at EA’s Maxis and Playfish game studios, and it’s EA’s big counterattack against Zynga’s CityVille, which has 27.6 million monthly active users and is still the No. 3 game on Facebook 21 months after its launch.

The game is an interesting experiment since EA is launching a more casual version of SimCity for Facebook at the same time it’s readying its new SimCity, a more traditional, $60 PC game, for launch in 2013. EA views the titles as targeting different audiences, where SimCity Social could target a broader audience — a new generation of urban planners — that could eventually try out the $60 game. The risk, of course, is that the social game might reduce demand for the $60 title.

“SimCity Social will entice a new generation of urban planners with its easy-to-use tools that allow anyone to expand and grow their own unique sprawling metropolises and watch as it comes to life in fun and unexpected ways,” said Jami Laes, the vice president of Global Studios for Playfish. “SimCity Social is about playing with your friends. Whether you do that with kindness by helping put out a fire or through mischievous acts like helping a criminal escape, the decisions you make with your friends will determine how the story of your cities plays out.”

Zynga and EA are in a big struggle for the emerging social games market. Zynga is No. 1 with 246 million monthly active users, according to AppData. EA has 41.2 million monthly active users, and its biggest game is The Sims Social, which has 15.3 million monthly active users. This is pretty far below its peak last year.

With SimCity Social, the player doesn’t follow a linear path. Cities evolve as a direct result of player-driven choice, allowing for more creative freedom than a game that leads you directly down a path. As mayor, the player deals with unforeseen problems like fires, crime, and pollution. The fun part of the game is making decisions to solve those issues. Players can also compete on a social level, creating friendly or competitive relationships with other cities. The Facebook game already has more than 750,000 fans.

EA plans to integrate advertiser Dunkin’ Donuts into the SimCity Social game; players can gift coffee and donut “boosts” to friends during the game.

]]>http://venturebeat.com/2012/07/05/ea-goes-after-cityville-with-todays-launch-of-simcity-social/feed/1484794EA goes after CityVille with today’s launch of SimCity SocialCrowdstar teams up with Gree for social mobile gameshttp://venturebeat.com/2012/04/30/crowdstar-teams-up-with-gree-for-social-mobile-games/
http://venturebeat.com/2012/04/30/crowdstar-teams-up-with-gree-for-social-mobile-games/#respondMon, 30 Apr 2012 17:00:59 +0000http://venturebeat.com/?p=422831Shifting from Facebook to mobile, Crowdstar is announcing today that it will publish games through Gree‘s worldwide mobile social network. The alliance isn’t a surprise in one respect: Gree purchased OpenFeint, a sister company to Crowdstar, from YouWeb for $104 million last year. Gree is using that platform as the basis for its smartphone-based mobile […]
]]>

Shifting from Facebook to mobile, Crowdstar is announcing today that it will publish games through Gree‘s worldwide mobile social network.

The alliance isn’t a surprise in one respect: Gree purchased OpenFeint, a sister company to Crowdstar, from YouWeb for $104 million last year. Gree is using that platform as the basis for its smartphone-based mobile social network.

“We believe that the future of gaming is on mobile and that the industry needs both strong high quality social titles and a strong global platform to meet the needs of players and developers alike,” says Peter Relan, chief executive of Crowdstar. “Gree and Crowdstar share the same idea that without social connections and a way for people to discover and interact in and around games, the industry will stall.”

Relan said that Menlo Park, Calif.-based Crowdstar will put less emphasis on creating original Facebook games in the future as it focuses on the larger market opportunity of mobile. While Zynga dominates the field on Facebook, mobile is a much more level playing field, Relan said in an interview with GamesBeat.

“We were excited when we saw Gree come with OpenFeint and deliver alternatives,” Relan said. “This is a good opportunity to drive our growth in the post-PC era.”

Relan said Facebook has been a good strategic partner and the company will maintain its games such as Happy Aquarium, Happy Pets, Wasteland Empires, and It Girl. It will also continue to publish mobile web games that work across both Facebook and mobile platforms. Wasteland Empires was the company’s big hope for a hit in the hardcore social game space, but it peaked with only 83,000 daily active users in September. Now, Relan said that Gree will be Crowdstar’s new strategic partner in mobile.

Gree is also announcing an exclusive partnership with iWin. Gree is launching its mobile social network platform in the second quarter. Interestingly, Gree will have a booth at the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3), which is traditionally the venue for launching PC and console video games.

Social game maker iWin will be publishing its first two social mobile games exclusively on Gree as it also turns its focus on the mobile market. iWin will be releasing two titles, “1 vs 100” and “Deal or No Deal,” adapted to mobile from the successful Facebook versions.

“Gree is building a social mobile gaming ecosystem that offers the best features and experiences,” said Eros Resmini, senior vice president of developer relations and marketing at Gree International. “Crowdstar’s and iWin’s commitment to the mobile games market and focus on high quality social games makes them the ideal partner for us. We have huge respect for what they have achieved in the marketplace, and are excited to work with them to bring great games to users around the world.”

GamesBeat 2012 is VentureBeat’s fourth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. This year we’re calling on speakers from the hottest mobile, social, PC, and console companies to debate new ways to stay on pace with changing consumer tastes and platforms. Join 500+ execs, investors, analysts, entrepreneurs, and press as we explore the gaming industry’s latest trends and newest monetization opportunities. The event takes place July 10-11 in San Francisco, and you can get your early-bird tickets here.

]]>http://venturebeat.com/2012/04/30/crowdstar-teams-up-with-gree-for-social-mobile-games/feed/0422831Crowdstar teams up with Gree for social mobile gamesBicycle card game owner to launch Zeniz mobile social casino games platform (exclusive)http://venturebeat.com/2012/04/20/bicycle-card-game-owner-to-launch-zeniz-mobile-social-casino-games-platform-exclusive/
http://venturebeat.com/2012/04/20/bicycle-card-game-owner-to-launch-zeniz-mobile-social-casino-games-platform-exclusive/#respondFri, 20 Apr 2012 09:00:05 +0000http://venturebeat.com/?p=418747Online casino games are hot. So much so that we’re renaming our site Casino GamesBeat. Just kidding, but The United States Playing Card Company (owner of the Bicycle playing card brand) and Digi117 aren’t. Those two companies are partnering to form Zeniz, a mobile social casino game platform. Together, they will launch the Zeniz Social […]
]]>

Online casino games are hot. So much so that we’re renaming our site Casino GamesBeat. Just kidding, but The United States Playing Card Company (owner of the Bicycle playing card brand) and Digi117 aren’t. Those two companies are partnering to form Zeniz, a mobile social casino game platform.

Together, they will launch the Zeniz Social Casino platform for iOS (iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch) and Android this spring. Casino games are the rage, according to a first-quarter acquisition and investments report by Digi-Capital. Just yesterday, Playsino announced it had raised $1.5 million.

The United States Playing Card Company is based in Erlanger, Kentucky, and is a subsidiary of Jarden. Vancouver, Canada-based Digi117 is a mobile strategy agency. Their Zeniz Social Casino will operate under a freemium model, where you can play casino games for free and pay real money for virtual goods such as virtual currency.

They plan to launch a new casino game for the platform every two months, eventually creating a full suite of casino games. Zeniz will be a social gaming network that is like a shell, with a Main Stage, where players can engage with mobile games before entering branded game rooms.

“Our product is more than just another poker app, it’s a virtual casino: one lobby with digital entertainment as well as many games,” said Marc Hill, president of USPC. “The platform is targeted to social gamers with high-end graphics optimized for mobile devices and tablets that bring together critical game attributes and branding opportunities that don’t exist in any other mobile game application. Our platform introduces new technology and exciting new ways to play casino games in both single-play and social-play modes. ”

USPC is the largest provider of playing cards in North America and owner of the Bicycle, Bee, and Aristocrat playing card brands. The company is moving into digital and repositioning itself for a new generation of consumers. That’s a big step for a company that has been in business for 125 years.

“We are excited to be partnered with USPC and feel lucky to be involved with a visionary like Marc helping to implement the USPC digital strategy,” said Vadim Chernega, president of Digi117. “After designing, developing, and promoting over two hundred mobile applications with millions of downloads, we feel confident our experience will make this game a winner. We have some of the most talented designers, and we have launched a new-to-the-world social gaming concept.”

The company isn’t yet describing any of the digital games.

“As entertainment becomes centered on digital, we know we have to offer our customers a new way to play,” said Hill. “Our vision is to leverage our heritage and develop a revenue-generating social gaming company to compete in the mobile application space.”

]]>http://venturebeat.com/2012/04/20/bicycle-card-game-owner-to-launch-zeniz-mobile-social-casino-games-platform-exclusive/feed/0418747Bicycle card game owner to launch Zeniz mobile social casino games platform (exclusive)Kontagent launches its kSuite DataMine analytics tool for monetizing mobile gameshttp://venturebeat.com/2012/04/05/kontagent-launches-its-ksuite-datamine-analytics-tool-for-monetizing-mobile-games/
http://venturebeat.com/2012/04/05/kontagent-launches-its-ksuite-datamine-analytics-tool-for-monetizing-mobile-games/#respondThu, 05 Apr 2012 19:00:53 +0000http://venturebeat.com/?p=403696Kontagent is one of the companies that is rich with big data as it provides analytics services to more than 1,000 social and mobile apps with more than 150 million users. As such, it has been able to learn a lot about how to make money from these games. Now the company is launching its new […]
]]>

Kontagent is one of the companies that is rich with big data as it provides analytics services to more than 1,000 social and mobile apps with more than 150 million users. As such, it has been able to learn a lot about how to make money from these games.

Now the company is launching its new kSuite DataMine platform that will give social and mobile developers a dashboard so that they can better engage and monetize users. The tool is aimed at database experts, and it allows them to craft their own data queries so that they can extract the most interesting information about users on an anonymous level.

San Francisco, Calif.-based Kontagent has been working on the technology for a year so that game companies and app developers can tune their virtual economies and extract more money out of users. The technology is the same that Facebook uses to mine its own database. This data analysis can give developers a good answer about what is the exact cost of user acquisition. That’s important as torrid growth slows down for a lot of applications.

“It used to cost too much to do data mining in our industry,” said Jeff Tseng (pictured middle), chief executive and co-founder of Kontagent, in an interview with VentureBeat. “This is where there is a lot of room for innovation.”

The DataMine adds a new layer of flexibility and analysis to Kontagent’s existing kSuite analytics platform. It is available as an add-on monthly subscription to kSuite. DataMine provides analysts and business intelligence professionals with access to raw data, not just reports. Users with a basic knowledge of SQL can ask questions, test hypotheses, and slice and dice the data in any way they see fit.

They can figure out why users are leaving a game and what actions to take before they drop out. They can use the analytic tool to maximize virtual goods sales and review cohorts (groups of users) over time. DataMine can answer questions such as (from Kontagent’s website):

What last three actions did users take before they uninstalled or failed to return?

What last five behaviors did users exhibit before purchasing virtual goods?

What are the purchase habits of my highest-value gamers or users?

Who are my most viral users, and how can I use that information to attract more of them?

What unusual spending patterns or other behaviors signal the presence of fraud or other anomalies?

The big question is whether smaller developers can now do the same kind of analysis that big companies, such as Zynga, can. Zynga has opened its infrastructure up, allowing outside game developers to publish on its platform. But Kontagent can offer analytics — in case developers don’t trust Zynga with their precious user data. Still, Zynga has a huge advantage over its competitors because it is so good at user analysis, Tseng said.

“This is a big area we can address with this release,” Tseng said. “This levels the playing field.”

Miles Lennon, a vice president of product management at beta-testing company GameGround, said that the DataMine enables the smallest features and tests. Rivals include Flurry and Kissmetrics.

In a demo of the system, Evin Levey (pictured left; Dan Kimball, chief marketing officer, pictured right), vice president of product development, showed the different kinds of metrics that Kontagent can provide. It can show installs, Facebook invitations, level changes, page views, and little things, like what happens when you buy a special pig in a farm game. If you have a casino game, what would be the best way to bundle coins for users to purchase? This kind of tool can answer that question after analysts run their experiments.

If a game doesn’t engage the user until the 15th session, something is definitely wrong with it. Kontagent already has a couple dozen beta customers who have tried it out. Data is available on an hourly basis. A formal launch will happen in the second quarter.

“This changes the conversation dramatically,” Tseng said. “There’ no more fishing around in the dark.”

[Photo credit: Dean Takahashi]

]]>http://venturebeat.com/2012/04/05/kontagent-launches-its-ksuite-datamine-analytics-tool-for-monetizing-mobile-games/feed/0403696Kontagent launches its kSuite DataMine analytics tool for monetizing mobile gamesThe Tap Lab raises $550K to fund location-based mobile gameshttp://venturebeat.com/2012/04/03/the-tap-lab-raises-550k-to-fund-location-based-mobile-games/
http://venturebeat.com/2012/04/03/the-tap-lab-raises-550k-to-fund-location-based-mobile-games/#respondTue, 03 Apr 2012 15:00:43 +0000http://venturebeat.com/?p=407635The Tap Lab has raised $550,000 to finance mobile games that are layered on top of real-world locations. The idea is to create experiences that “extend beyond the edge of our screens and into reality.” Investors include the founding team of Harmonix, Alex Rigopoulos and Eran Egozy, who are the creators of Guitar Hero and […]
]]>

The Tap Lab has raised $550,000 to finance mobile games that are layered on top of real-world locations. The idea is to create experiences that “extend beyond the edge of our screens and into reality.”

Investors include the founding team of Harmonix, Alex Rigopoulos and Eran Egozy, who are the creators of Guitar Hero and Rock Band. Others include Google’s Don Dodge, Mike Dornbrook of Common Angels, and other angel financiers.

Cambridge, Mass.-based The Tap Lab has spent the last year building a real-world game engine, much like Red Robot Labs’ R2, for location-based games. The Tap Lab’s first release that will take advantage of this effort is TapCity 2, which launches this summer.

Co-founders Dave Bisceglia and Ralph Shao started The Tap Lab in 2010 after graduating from Boston University in May 2009. The company was a member of the last graduating class of TechStars Boston. As part of that effort, they created their original TapCity multiplayer mobile game, where you build and defend a virtual city based on the places you visit in real life.

Much like the original Booyah game, it is a lot like playing Monopoly in the real world, where you can own various locations. TapCity 2 will let players virtually explore the entire world. Players earn points from completing tasks at the real locations and purchasing virtual versions of real products in those venues in the game.

“We believe there is so much more to location-based gaming beyond the check-­in,” Bisceglia, chief executive, said. “There is an enormous opportunity to create games that invite players to compete and collaborate in the real world.”

Dodge said he was interested because The Tap Lab is focused on mobile, social, local, and games. TapCity 2 won the South by Southwest AppCircus competition last month, and it will show off the new game at PAX East in Boston.

“We think that location-based gaming is more interesting in the real world,” Bisceglia said in an interview with VentureBeat. “We are diving deeper by categorizing bars, restaurants, clubs and other places. We stylized a virtual venue and give players jobs based on what that place is.”

The company has five employees, and it plans on adding more. The Tap Lab is focusing on iOS (iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch) for now. Bisceglia said that the original game and prototypes have taught the company what works and what doesn’t. The encouraging part was that the active users played the game for 25 minutes a day or more.

[Image credits: The Tap Lab and Kevin Rooney]

GamesBeat 2012 is VentureBeat’s fourth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. This year we’re calling on speakers from the hottest mobile, social, PC, and console companies to debate new ways to stay on pace with changing consumer tastes and platforms. Join 500+ execs, investors, analysts, entrepreneurs, and press as we explore the gaming industry’s latest trends and newest monetization opportunities. The event takes place July 10-11 in San Francisco, and you can get your early-bird tickets here.

]]>http://venturebeat.com/2012/04/03/the-tap-lab-raises-550k-to-fund-location-based-mobile-games/feed/0407635The Tap Lab raises $550K to fund location-based mobile gamesPlayPhone buys mobile marketing firm SocialHour for $51.5M (exclusive)http://venturebeat.com/2012/03/16/playphone-buys-mobile-marketing-firm-socialhour-for-51-5m-exclusive/
http://venturebeat.com/2012/03/16/playphone-buys-mobile-marketing-firm-socialhour-for-51-5m-exclusive/#respondSat, 17 Mar 2012 00:42:57 +0000http://venturebeat.com/?p=403674PlayPhone has acquired mobile social marketing firm SocialHour for $51.5 million in stock, VentureBeat has learned. Ron Czerny, chief executive of PlayPhone, confirmed the non-cash transaction in an interview with VentureBeat. The deal will help the company build a major social gaming network across platforms in the mobile market. In December, PlayPhone launched its smartphone […]
]]>PlayPhone has acquired mobile social marketing firm SocialHour for $51.5 million in stock, VentureBeat has learned.

Ron Czerny, chief executive of PlayPhone, confirmed the non-cash transaction in an interview with VentureBeat. The deal will help the company build a major social gaming network across platforms in the mobile market.

In December, PlayPhone launched its smartphone mobile social gaming network after signing up more than 3 million users worldwide. Now PlayPhone needs a mobile marketing platform to go with it to create incentivized or non-incentivized cross promotions for games on its network, Czerny (pictured) said.

“We’ve been following SocialHour for a while, and they have a very sophisticated program for marketing and lead generation on mobile devices,” he said.

San Jose, Calif.-based PlayPhone hopes to challenge rivals such as Gree/OpenFeint and DeNA/Ngmoco in the battle to create a huge social network of gamers on smartphones and tablets. PlayPhone’s entry into the competition is going to make the market a lot more interesting for developers and consumers, as the company hopes to differentiate itself through cross-platform game play, payments, and social functionality.

PlayPhone has created a free-to-play app that runs on the Apple iOS, Android, Flash, Windows Phone 7, and HTML5 platforms. The app lets players socialize with each other and play in the same online multiplayer game across different smartphone and tablet platforms.

While Gree/OpenFeint and DeNA/Ngmoco have strong bases in Japan, PlayPhone was founded much later and has a smaller number of users. But PlayPhone began building its mobile social network in 2010.

PlayPhone is already live and operating globally and has been operating a mobile game network for five years on feature phones. But it is only now launching on smartphones and tablets. The PlayPhone app runs in native mode on all of the major formats.

When a user logs into a game such as PlayPhone Poker, the mobile social network connects automatically. You can see that it does so with a PlayPhone icon in the corner of your mobile phone screen. You can activate it by tapping on the icon. When you get to the game’s first screen, you can see pictures of your friends who might be able to play the game with you.

In the past, Czerny showed me how a player with an Android phone could play at the same PlayPhone Poker card table as someone with an Apple iPhone. The players could send messages to each other and chat back and forth. You can sign on once via Facebook and quickly access all games. You can buy poker chips via the Apple App Store through in-app purchases. But you can also buy poker chips via PlayPhone’s other payment options.

While you’re sitting at a poker table, you can invite a friend to play. The platform synchronizes the players, even if they are from a different platform. The mobile social network uses HTML5 as its interface. You can chat with friends in real-time while playing the game.

PlayPhone has its own virtual currency (Playcredits) and you can access various carrier billing and payment options, even on a closed platform such as Apple’s iOS. You don’t have to exit a game to pay for a virtual good. Czerny said the company has relations with more than 100 global carriers. PlayPhone is a preferred direct-billing partner with both AT&T and Verizon in the U.S.

PlayPhone has raised an undisclosed amount of funding from Menlo Ventures, Cardinal Venture Capital, Coral Group, and Scale Venture Partners. It has 110 employees, including 22 joining from San Francisco-based SocialHour.

GamesBeat 2012 is VentureBeat’s fourth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. This year we’re calling on speakers from the hottest mobile, social, PC, and console companies to debate new ways to stay on pace with changing consumer tastes and platforms. Join 500+ execs, investors, analysts, entrepreneurs, and press as we explore the gaming industry’s latest trends and newest monetization opportunities. The event takes place July 10-11 in San Francisco, and you can get your early-bird tickets here.

]]>http://venturebeat.com/2012/03/16/playphone-buys-mobile-marketing-firm-socialhour-for-51-5m-exclusive/feed/0403674PlayPhone buys mobile marketing firm SocialHour for $51.5M (exclusive)Will they laugh this time? Shervin Pishevar predicts social mobile games to dwarf Facebook gameshttp://venturebeat.com/2011/12/17/will-they-laugh-this-time-shervin-pishevar-predicts-social-mobile-games-will-be-bigger-than-facebook-games/
http://venturebeat.com/2011/12/17/will-they-laugh-this-time-shervin-pishevar-predicts-social-mobile-games-will-be-bigger-than-facebook-games/#respondSat, 17 Dec 2011 16:00:11 +0000http://venturebeat.com/?p=366476As the founder of Social Gaming Network, Shervin Pishevar squared off against Zynga in the early days of social gaming. But Pishevar veered off into iPhone gaming while Mark Pincus stayed put on Facebook with social games. The consequences of that competitive battle have played out. Zynga went public at a $10 billion valuation yesterday, […]
]]>As the founder of Social Gaming Network, Shervin Pishevar squared off against Zynga in the early days of social gaming. But Pishevar veered off into iPhone gaming while Mark Pincus stayed put on Facebook with social games.

The consequences of that competitive battle have played out. Zynga went public at a $10 billion valuation yesterday, while MindJolt acquired SGN for a much lower price in April. But Pishevar isn’t bitter. He offered his congratulations to his friend Pincus and many of his friends whose companies were acquired by Zynga. And he still believes mobile social games will be bigger than Facebook games.

“This is a historic day for a bunch of us,” said Pishevar, now a managing director at Menlo Ventures, in an interview on Friday. “Back in 2007, there were a very small band of entrepreneurs who believed in social gaming. I took the route of mobile and Mark took the route of Facebook.”

Pishevar deserves some cred as a visionary in the space, even if his company didn’t hit the home run.

“The DNA of all of the entrepreneurs are in the successes of this business,” Pishevar said.

He recalls giving a talk at a Casual Connect show in Seattle a few years ago. He predicted social gaming would be a multibillion-dollar business. And the audience laughed.

“That was an amazing cycle to go through,” Pishevar said. “Mobile social gaming will be bigger than Facebook gaming The numbers we are seeing are pretty incredible.”

Now, Pishevar predicts, “Mobile social gaming will be bigger than Facebook gaming in the next three years. It will be a multibillion-dollar business.”

Menlo Ventures is looking for the companies that will be the winners in mobile, where Pishevar said, “Zynga hasn’t cracked the code.” So far, the missing piece of the puzzle is social connectivity, a layer that still has to be built into mobile games and mobile game networks.

]]>http://venturebeat.com/2011/12/17/will-they-laugh-this-time-shervin-pishevar-predicts-social-mobile-games-will-be-bigger-than-facebook-games/feed/0366476Will they laugh this time? Shervin Pishevar predicts social mobile games to dwarf Facebook gamesJapanese firms battle for mobile social game supremacyhttp://venturebeat.com/2011/11/16/japanese-firms-battle-for-mobile-social-game-supremacy/
http://venturebeat.com/2011/11/16/japanese-firms-battle-for-mobile-social-game-supremacy/#respondWed, 16 Nov 2011 16:00:06 +0000http://venturebeat.com/?p=353052The Japanese are coming. In the wide open field of mobile social gaming, two large-scale Japanese companies, both of which have made major acquisitions of American firms, will soon be going head-to-head for worldwide dominance. Gree is expected to launch its global network sometime in 2012, while DENA’s Mobage network recently came out of beta on […]
]]>The Japanese are coming. In the wide open field of mobile social gaming, two large-scale Japanese companies, both of which have made major acquisitions of American firms, will soon be going head-to-head for worldwide dominance. Gree is expected to launch its global network sometime in 2012, while DENA’s Mobage network recently came out of beta on Android and will spread to iOS soon after.

In Japan, the companies are already carving up a mobile social games market that is worth billions of dollars. But which one will come out on top on a worldwide basis? And is there room for both?

Gree

Gree has been growing fast. Between 2008 and 2010 Gree claims to have seen its sales growth rate increase by an astounding 4000 percent. It has 26 million registered users in Japan and, thanks to its acquisition of OpenFeint in April 2011, now boasts 140 million users worldwide. After the announcement of the $104 million acquisition, the two companies explained that they would be creating “a global ecosystem of distribution channels for game developers.”

That ecosystem will come in the form of an all-new mobile social network set to launch in mid-2012. The as-of-now unnamed platform will leverage the installed users of Gree in Japan and OpenFeint in the West with the ultimate goal of reaching one billion users for its free-to-play gaming experiences. It may sound like a lofty goal, but considering Gree’s continued worldwide expansion, it also seems like a distinct possibility.

In addition to OpenFeint, which is a wholly owned subsidiary, Gree also has partnership agreements with two very popular social networks in Asia. In April, Gree announced a partnership with Project Goth, the company behind Mig33, a mobile social network with 47 million users worldwide, but with a particular focus on emerging markets like South and Southeast Asia, the Middle East, and Africa.

But even bigger, back in August, Tencent, the largest social network in China with over 650 million users, announced a new platform called the Tencent Wireless Open Platform for Community, which is fully compatible with Gree and allows developers “to take full advantage of each other’s expertise and easily develop social gaming applications on either platform.” The initiative has attracted prominent Japanese developers like Tecmo Koei and Taito and makes it easy for companies to publish games on both platforms, reaching a very large audience of feature phone and smartphone users.

It’s not just partnerships, though, as Gree is also hoping to expand its global footprint by opening new offices across three continents. By February of next year the company expects to have bases of operations in London, Amsterdam, Singapore, Beijing, and Sao Paolo. And that’s in addition to its headquarters in Tokyo and San Francisco.

Just what Gree’s new social platform will look like remains to be seen, as will how it integrates the existing Gree and OpenFeint networks. OpenFeint already supports both Android and iOS, and is utilized by notable mobile developers like Halfbrick and Adult Swim thanks to features like developer announcements (which lets developers promote upcoming releases inside of existing games) and the always popular free app of the day. Presumably those features will make their way to the new platform as well.

Officially launched earlier this month, Mobage is already being utilized by some of the most popular free titles available on Android, including Zombie Farm and Pocket Frogs. And while the global service is still relatively new, in Japan Mobage boasts more than 30 million users. It will also be expanding from Android to iOS in the near future.

On the surface Mobage is very similar to other mobile networks like OpenFeint or even Ngmoco’s own iOS service Plus+. Users can create a persistent profile to use across games, purchase virtual currency, and interact with friends. One of the things that separates the service, though, and makes it particularly attractive for developers is its monetization. More specifically how well its games tend to monetize. In Japan Mobage has been able to create an average revenue per user of $12 a month, which is very high for free-to-play game experiences. This is done through the sale of Moba-coins, a premium currency that can be used across all games on the service.

And it’s that kind of success that the global version of Mobage is attempting to emulate. During a recent media event at ngmoco’s San Francisco headquarters, Young explained recently that “we want to take full advantage of everything DeNA has learned.”

Previously an iOS-focused game developer, since being acquired by DeNA last year, ngmoco has transitioned into what Young describes as a “platform company.” And while that includes managing the network across virtually all territories outside of Japan, it also means developing first-party games and creating a third-party development ecosystem. So far Mobage is home to around 30 games from developers like The Playforge and Nimblebit, but according to ngmoco more than 120 games have either been released or are in development. And that includes recently announced first-party titles like SkyFall and Dragon Craft from ngmoco’s San Francisco and New York-based studios, respectively.

Unsurprisingly, much like Gree, DeNA has been aggressively expanding into new territories as well. In June the company opened up a subsidiary in Seoul, Mobage was launched in China in July, August saw a new office open up in Singapore, Vietnam-based Punch Entertainment became a first-party DeNA game studio in September, and in October it spread to Latin America with the acquisition of Atakama Labs.

Conclusion

Both DeNA and Gree are gearing up for a war, spending hundreds of millions of dollars on growing their existing services into global products. But they’re also going in somewhat different directions. Gree’s focus appears to be on size, as its goal of one billion users shows. Its installed base is already huge, but with new partnerships and an expanded global presence, the audience will likely only grow.

DeNA, meanwhile, appears to be putting much of its resources into the actual games, courting users by offering more compelling experiences and then earning a significantly higher amount of money per user. Not only has DeNA managed to court a number of prominent developers, especially in Japan where studios like Grasshopper Manufacture and Namco Bandai have signed deals to develop social games, but it’s also putting a good deal of effort into developing its own quality game experiences.

Of course, these aren’t the only two players. Apple’s own Game Center app has around 67 million users and comes pre-installed on new Apple devices. It’s also relatively feature-light and is limited by the fact that it’s only available on a single platform. There are also developers such as EA and Gameloft that have their own mobile social networks. But both Gree and DeNA are putting much more effort into their offerings, making them the clear front runners for supremacy going forward. We’ll see who comes out on top.

]]>http://venturebeat.com/2011/11/16/japanese-firms-battle-for-mobile-social-game-supremacy/feed/0353052Japanese firms battle for mobile social game supremacyFor PapayaMobile’s social games, the women are the “whales” (exclusive)http://venturebeat.com/2011/09/29/for-papayamobiles-social-games-the-women-are-the-whales-exclusive/
http://venturebeat.com/2011/09/29/for-papayamobiles-social-games-the-women-are-the-whales-exclusive/#respondThu, 29 Sep 2011 14:00:51 +0000http://venturebeat.com/?p=336717As is customary in games, PapayaMobile depends heavily on the tiny proportion of users who pay for goods in social mobile games. But one of the surprises is that some of the most enthusiastic customers, known as “whales,” are for the most part women. Papaya found that 69 percent of its big spenders in games […]
]]>As is customary in games, PapayaMobile depends heavily on the tiny proportion of users who pay for goods in social mobile games. But one of the surprises is that some of the most enthusiastic customers, known as “whales,” are for the most part women. Papaya found that 69 percent of its big spenders in games are women.

In hardcore games, most of the fanatical customers are men. But many social mobile games appeal to women more than men. The data from Beijing-based Papaya shows that when the content suits women, they can be big spenders on games as well. Whales are extremely important to game companies, as Papaya says they account for 60 percent of revenue.

Papaya makes both a social mobile networking platform and the games that use that platform.Other game developers also use the Papaya platform to make their games more social.

Those games are free-to-play, where users play for free and pay real money for virtual items in a game. Usually, only a few percent of players will bother to pay. The company defines whales as customers who pay more $100 on a game. Those whales make up about 4 percent of the players. Mid-spenders — who spend $10 to $100 on a game — account for 17 percent of players. And minnows, who spend less than $10, account for 79 percent of the users. While whales are 60 percent of revenue, mid-spenders are 32 percent of revenue and minnows are 8 percent.

Whales spend their virtual currency on “consumable” virtual goods, which expire, such as energy in a game. About 96.65 percent of whale spending is focused on consumables. For minnows, only 80.93 percent is spent on consumables. The rest is spent on “durable” virtual goods which don’t go away, such as avatars.

Whales, it seems, have a profound lack of patience. About 86.9 percent of the money that whales spend on consumables is dedicated to accelerators, or things that speed up processes in a game. You can, for instance, accelerate the construction of a building in a game by purchasing an accelerator. About 7.5 percent of consumables purchased by whales are bonus items, while 0.6 percent are time savers.

As you can see in the chart at the right, the average spending by whales peaks in the second and third months of playing a Papaya game. Minnows, on the other hand, spend more than whales in the first four days after downloading a game. Then the minnows stop spending.

Whales are also more social. They spend 2.5 times more time in social network sessions than minnows do. The whales also reply to comments in mobile chat rooms about 2.5 times ore than minnows do. Whales also do six times more updates to their status bars than minnows.

In general, Papaya concludes that whales, particularly women, help drive monetization by extending the time of engagement with an app and by generating more revenue over a long period of time.

]]>http://venturebeat.com/2011/09/29/for-papayamobiles-social-games-the-women-are-the-whales-exclusive/feed/0336717For PapayaMobile’s social games, the women are the “whales” (exclusive)CrowdStar and YouWeb launch $10M fund to invest in mobile developershttp://venturebeat.com/2011/07/15/crowdstar-and-youweb-launch-10m-fund-to-invest-in-mobile-developers/
http://venturebeat.com/2011/07/15/crowdstar-and-youweb-launch-10m-fund-to-invest-in-mobile-developers/#respondFri, 15 Jul 2011 19:00:55 +0000http://venturebeat.com/?p=309589CrowdStar and YouWeb have launched a $10 million fund to invest in mobile social game developers. The fund is an acknowledgement that game maker CrowdStar can’t make all of the best games itself. It is also yet another sign that winning over game developers is critical for publishers in the land grab for market share […]
]]>CrowdStar and YouWeb have launched a $10 million fund to invest in mobile social game developers. The fund is an acknowledgement that game maker CrowdStar can’t make all of the best games itself.

It is also yet another sign that winning over game developers is critical for publishers in the land grab for market share on fast-growing mobile platforms.

The two companies have the same roots and are natural partners, said Peter Relan, chief executive of CrowdStar and chairman of YouWeb, in an interview. YouWeb is an incubator that spawned CrowdStar and other hot startups of the mobile-social era, including Sibblingz, iSwifter and OpenFeint.

In that respect, Burlingame, Calif.-based YouWeb is good at finding entrepreneurs and backing them, Relan said. To handle this new StarFund, Relan is assigning a key (unannounced) lieutenant to focus on finding good mobile game developers.

“We want games and more of them,” Relan said. “We know we don’t have all the ideas.”

CrowdStar recently raised $23 million from Intel Capital and Time Warner investments. That allows CrowdStar to contribute both money and game production expertise to the partnership. But Relan, who spoke in a fireside chat at our GamesBeat 2011 conference on Wednesday, said that CrowdStar had to raise that money because it is accelerating its global expansion and has ambitions to be big on Facebook, on mobile, and in Asia. Of those major markets, Facebook is likely to be the smallest business opportunity, Relan said.

Social games on Facebook took off like a rocket and CrowdStar rode that wave. But now the company has launched its first mobile game, Top Girl, aimed at young females. The game simulates a modeling career and was created by CrowdStar’s new mobile studio, headed by Blair Hamilton. The game took off and got to the No. 1 spot on Apple’s App Store, acquiring more than 1 million downloads in 10 days.

Relan said that CrowdStar (which has 25 million monthly active users on Facebook) knows how to make social games on Facebook, based on metrics and analyzing user feedback. It can apply that expertise to mobile and help young mobile game developers to make their games in addition to giving them money. With the hit game Top Girl, CrowdStar also has distribution power on mobile, Relan said. CrowdStar can launch new mobile titles in the future that it can cross-promote to its new female demographic on mobile phones.

Relan said the fund will invest up to $250,000 in initial funding for developers. CrowdStar will offer marketing and analytics resources to help developers and enable them to get into global markets. CrowdStar may also acquire developers on a selective basis. On CrowdStar’s side, founder Suren Markosian will help find the new mobile developers. Hamilton said that great teams and products can still get to the top in mobile social games.

“Mobile gaming is a very young market and there is a lot of creativity out there,” Relan said. “Developers have great ideas, but they may not have the game design and metrics expertise that we do as a publisher.”

Relan said that one or two deals are already in place.

]]>http://venturebeat.com/2011/07/15/crowdstar-and-youweb-launch-10m-fund-to-invest-in-mobile-developers/feed/0309589CrowdStar and YouWeb launch $10M fund to invest in mobile developersHardcore iPhone game Infinity Blade lands on DeNA's social gaming networkhttp://venturebeat.com/2011/06/22/infinity-blade-mobile-social-game/
http://venturebeat.com/2011/06/22/infinity-blade-mobile-social-game/#respondWed, 22 Jun 2011 19:09:12 +0000http://venturebeat.com/?p=302174Japanese mobile games portal DeNA announced today it’s bringing the popular iPhone game Infinity Blade, one of the first mobile games geared toward hardcore gamers, to its mobile social network. The game will be marketed as Infinity Blade X for Mobage. It will be free to play and supported by selling virtual goods in the game. Players […]
]]>Japanese mobile games portal DeNA announced today it’s bringing the popular iPhone game Infinity Blade, one of the first mobile games geared toward hardcore gamers, to its mobile social network.

The game will be marketed as Infinity Blade X for Mobage. It will be free to play and supported by selling virtual goods in the game. Players can spend real-world dollars to buy better weapons, armor and spells that will help them progress through the game more quickly.

Infinity Blade broke through a lot of the boundaries for graphics on a smartphone. It was one of the first games to show that the iPhone 4 and iPad 2 could compete as gaming platform with devices that build specifically for gaming. Infinity Blade on the iPhone 4 actually looks a touch better than the graphics available on the PlayStation Portable, Sony’s handheld video game console, and much better than those on the Nintendo DS.

The game puts players in control of a man on a mission to destroy the “God-King,” a hyper-powerful knight that kicks your ass the first time you play the game. The player controls the game by swiping their finger to swing their sword and tapping the screen to dodge attacks and bring up their shield. Over time the player becomes more powerful and gets access to better equipment — like new spells, swords and shields.

Infinity Blade was a commercial success for Epic Games, the company behind the game, and brought in more than $10 million in revenue. That’s pretty impressive given that the game costs $6 on the Apple App Store. Epic Games is known for games that push the limits of graphics on devices like its over-the-shoulder shooting game series Gears of War.

]]>http://venturebeat.com/2011/06/22/infinity-blade-mobile-social-game/feed/0302174Hardcore iPhone game Infinity Blade lands on DeNA's social gaming networkSocial games company MindJolt taps new mobile veteranhttp://venturebeat.com/2011/06/22/mindjolt-ulf-waschbusch/
http://venturebeat.com/2011/06/22/mindjolt-ulf-waschbusch/#respondWed, 22 Jun 2011 16:00:16 +0000http://venturebeat.com/?p=301710MindJolt, the social game company headed by MySpace co-founder Chris DeWolfe, has added a mobile veteran to its staff in a move to expand to mobile social games. Ulf Waschbusch (pictured), who recently served as chief product officer of Garena, a company that runs electronic sports leagues and promotes video games, has joined the company […]
]]>MindJolt, the social game company headed by MySpace co-founder Chris DeWolfe, has added a mobile veteran to its staff in a move to expand to mobile social games.

Ulf Waschbusch (pictured), who recently served as chief product officer of Garena, a company that runs electronic sports leagues and promotes video games, has joined the company to lead internal social mobile game development. He will lead the team under the Social Gaming Network studio, which MindJolt acquired in April.

DeWolfe is establishing a pretty robust team in order to take on other social gaming companies in the industry. He said in past interviews that he intends to do a “roll-up” in social games, and he is doing just that with these acquisitions. Tapping Waschbusch is likely part of that strategy in order to take on some of the bigger players in mobile social gaming — such as Zynga, which offers most of its social games on mobile devices like the iPhone.

DeWolfe resurfaced in March last year after selling MySpace to News Corp and acquiring San Francisco-based MindJolt with backing from Austin Ventures. With a number of his former MySpace executives at his side, DeWolfe now said he wants to expand the company’s 20-million user audience through acquisitions.

His team includes Colin Digiaro, chief operating officer and former head of monetization at Myspace; Aber Whitcomb, chief technology officer and former CTO of MySpace; Josh Yguado, senior vice president of business and corporate development and former vice president of business development at Fox Networks Group. Richard Fields, founder of MindJolt, is head of strategy.

There are already big rivals such as Electronic Arts’ Playfish division, Playdom, and Zynga. That’s why DeWolfe started with the acquisition of a company that had already amassed a large audience, he said. DeWolfe has said he wants to develop MindJolt as a social game company that caters to indie game developers.

MindJolt also acquired Hallpass Media, which has about 4 million monthly users and 1,500 web games, in April. SGN had around 30 million downloads on iPhone and Android mobile devices as of April. SGN was founded in 2008 and has raised $18 million from backers including Eric Schmidt of Google and Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos.

MindJolt is a profitable company with more than $20 million in revenue and 20 million monthly users, according to a report by the New York Times. With the acquisitions, it has 80 employees.

]]>http://venturebeat.com/2011/06/22/mindjolt-ulf-waschbusch/feed/0301710Social games company MindJolt taps new mobile veteranSocial game firm CrowdStar moves into mobile with Top Girlhttp://venturebeat.com/2011/06/16/social-game-firm-crowdstar-moves-into-mobile-with-top-girl/
http://venturebeat.com/2011/06/16/social-game-firm-crowdstar-moves-into-mobile-with-top-girl/#respondThu, 16 Jun 2011 19:00:56 +0000http://venturebeat.com/?p=299503Already a big player in Facebook games, social game maker CrowdStar is expanding into mobile today with the launch of an iPhone game called Top Girl. The title is the first one built by CrowdStar’s new mobile game studio, headed by Blair Hamilton. It is also the first one fueled by the company recent $23 […]
]]>Already a big player in Facebook games, social game maker CrowdStar is expanding into mobile today with the launch of an iPhone game called Top Girl.

The title is the first one built by CrowdStar’s new mobile game studio, headed by Blair Hamilton. It is also the first one fueled by the company recent $23 million infusion of venture money. As such, the game is a big strategic move by CrowdStar, which was once ranked second only to Zynga on Facebook but is now No. 8 with 24 million monthly active users. If it succeeds, CrowdStar can grab an important foothold in smartphone and tablet games, which are some of the fastest-growing segments in gaming.

“To me, the mobile game market is reminiscent of Facebook in 2008, when there was no dominant company and the market was picking up speed,” said Peter Relan, chief executive of CrowdStar, in an interview. “It’s a very different battle, and we think we are up for it.”

Zynga recently launched its own mobile games, CityVille Hometown and Hanging With Friends, as it also pushes in the smartphone and tablet markets. Big game companies such as Electronic Arts also have a big stake in the mobile market.

The title is aimed at the same female demographic that CrowdStar attracts with its most successful Facebook game, It Girl. But Top Girl is focused on a unique mobile experience, Hamilton said. And it targets the under-served market of young women who enjoy playing social mobile role-playing games.

In the game, players try to climb the social ladder of fashion by becoming “mobile models.” They can earn currency via modeling jobs that they can use to buy clothes. They can wear the clothes and get into the best clubs. Once inside, they can then find the hottest guys, talk to them, kiss them and win them over as boyfriends. The monetization kicks in when boyfriend and girlfriend start giving each other gifts.

That may not sound like riveting stuff to most male gamers, but it is squarely targeted at women ages 18 to 35 and appeals to those with an interest in fashion, modeling and dating, said Relan.

Relan said that most of the top ranks of mobile games are dominated by simulation titles for men or revolve around collecting resources, like in farming games. But role-playing games for females are pretty scarce, even though women make up almost 50 percent of mobile social gamers, Hamilton said. She said the game focuses on shopping, modeling and relationships. The game does not have “showdowns” and “rivals” as It Girl has. Rather, Hamilton said it’s more about “you and your career.”

The game is a free-to-play native iPhone title. Users can download it for free on the iPhone or iPad and then pay real money for virtual goods in the game. The title is not connected to It Girl and so is a new brand that targets women who want to play out a fantasy modeling career. It does not use Facebook Connect for social connectivity. Rather, it uses the social mobile network of CrowdStar’s one-time sister company, OpenFeint, which was recently acquired by Gree.

CrowdStar recently raised a round of funding from Intel Capital and Time Warner. Top Girl is live in the Apple App Store today. CrowdStar has launched mobile games before in the mobile market. Those games, based on its Happy Aquarium title, were for feature phones and have pretty much run their course. CrowdStar will likely do an Android version of the new game as well.

We’ll be exploring the most disruptive game technologies and business models at our third annual GamesBeat 2011 conference, on July 12-13 at the Palace Hotel in San Francisco. It will focus on the disruptive trends in the mobile games market. GamesBeat is co-located with our MobileBeat 2011 conference this year. To register, click on this link. Sponsors can message us at sponsors@venturebeat.com. To enter the Who’s Got Game? contest for the best game startup, click here.

]]>http://venturebeat.com/2011/06/16/social-game-firm-crowdstar-moves-into-mobile-with-top-girl/feed/0299503Social game firm CrowdStar moves into mobile with Top GirlDiscoveryBeat 2010’s latest speakers: Kleiner Perkins’ Bing Gordon and morehttp://venturebeat.com/2010/10/14/discoverybeat-2010s-latest-speakers-kleiner-perkins-bing-gordon-and-more/
http://venturebeat.com/2010/10/14/discoverybeat-2010s-latest-speakers-kleiner-perkins-bing-gordon-and-more/#respondThu, 14 Oct 2010 14:00:30 +0000http://venturebeat.com/?p=220053Bing Gordon is sitting pretty in the new gaming gold rush that’s all social and mobile. A partner at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, he has been the critical consigliere for sizzling startups Ngmoco and Zynga, which have already generated big scores for his venture-capital firm. We hope to hear some insights from him on […]
]]>Bing Gordon is sitting pretty in the new gaming gold rush that’s all social and mobile. A partner at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, he has been the critical consigliere for sizzling startups Ngmoco and Zynga, which have already generated big scores for his venture-capital firm. We hope to hear some insights from him on the state of mobile and social game investments when he speaks on a panel at DiscoveryBeat 2010, which will take place in San Francisco on Monday.

Japan’s DeNA social mobile gaming firm just agreed to buy iPhone game maker Ngmoco for up to $400 million, resulting in a $100 million return for Kleiner Perkins. And Gordon is on the board of Zynga, where he’s a top advisor to Zynga chief executive Mark Pincus. Zynga is worth billions of dollars as the leader of social games on Facebook. Since Kleiner Perkins holds a stake in Zynga, it will likely cash out in a big way whenever Zynga sells or goes public.

“It was way better than putting money in the stock market in the wake of Lehman Brothers” (during the stock market crash of 2008), Gordon quipped about the Ngmoco investment in an interview this week.

Gordon will speak on our panel on “Investing in Discovery,” moderated by VentureBeat executive editor Owen Thomas. Gordon, the former chief creative officer at Electronic Arts and one of its earliest employees, left the big video game publisher in 2008 and began looking for disruptive companies.

Also at DiscoveryBeat, we’ve signed up two more speakers for our breakout session entitled “Indie Discovery Stories,” moderated by Anthony Ha, assistant editor at VentureBeat. The panel includes Doyon Kim, vice president of business development for YD Online, a Korean firm that has deep experience in online game. Kim will talk about the company’s entry into the U.S. market with a discovery-related solution. Kim previously founded Spotplex in 2007 and was cofounder at Opinity.

Joining Kim on that panel will be Chris Williams, general manager for mobile at PlayFirst, the independent casual game publisher that makes top hits such as Diner Dash, Wedding Dash, and Cooking Dash. Williams has spent more than 12 years in the game industry, most recently crafting the company’s iPad and iPhone products. He was previously a game producer at LucasArts Entertainment, working on titles such as Star Wars Republic Commando and Star Wars Empire at War. PlayFirst’s titles have been among the most successful gaming franchises in the App Store, and Diner Dash itself has been downloaded more than 500 million times.

DiscoveryBeat 2010 is an event focused on the secret recipes for application discovery and monetization. Our newest speakers represent vital parts of the ecosystem, from investors to app creators and experts who cover the space. Due to its success in 2009, the conference has expanded to a full-day event and will be held on October 18 at The Mission Bay Conference Center in San Francisco. Get your tickets here. For publishers or app developers, the promise of the mobile and social revolution is compelling. However, new players like Google’s Android are throwing out the early rules and creating new challenges in the ecosystem. How do you get discovered when there are 250,000 other publishers and applications fighting for users across diverse devices and interfaces, such as the PC, social networks, mobile phones, and tablets? We’ve summed up what we’ve learned so far about discovery techniques so far in a new VentureBeat feature, the Discovery Directory.

Brian Reynolds, chief game designer at Zynga; Norman Winarsky, head of SRI ventures;

Tim O’Brien, vice president of business development for Disney Mobile;

Arjun Sethi, chief executive of LOLapps;

Sebastien DeHalleux, co-founder of Playfish and vice president of business development & strategic partnerships of EA Interactive;

Si Shen, chief executive of Papaya Mobile;

Dave Smiddy, chief executive and cofounder, Infrinity

Marc Gumpinger, chief executive of Scoreloop;

Peter Relan, chairman of YouWeb.

Getting content noticed is a challenge for everyone making apps. Join us at DiscoveryBeat 2010 and hear secrets from top industry executives about how to break through and profit in the new cross-platform app ecosystem. From metrics to monetization, we’ll take an in-depth look at the best discovery strategies and why they’re working. See the full agenda here. The conference takes place on October 18 at the Mission Bay Conference Center in San Francisco. Sponsors include Flurry, Appolicious, appbackr, Adobe, Herakles Data Center, AppLaunchPr, YD Online, and Offermobi. For sponsor info, send an email to sponsors@venturebeat.com. To register, click here. Hurry though. Tickets are limited, and going fast.

]]>http://venturebeat.com/2010/10/14/discoverybeat-2010s-latest-speakers-kleiner-perkins-bing-gordon-and-more/feed/0220053DiscoveryBeat 2010’s latest speakers: Kleiner Perkins’ Bing Gordon and moreJapan’s DeNA buys iPhone game publisher Ngmoco for up to $400Mhttp://venturebeat.com/2010/10/12/japans-dena-buys-iphone-game-publisher-ngmoco-for-up-to-400m/
http://venturebeat.com/2010/10/12/japans-dena-buys-iphone-game-publisher-ngmoco-for-up-to-400m/#commentsTue, 12 Oct 2010 14:23:22 +0000http://venturebeat.com/?p=219524Japan’s DeNA said today it is buying Ngmoco for up to $400 million in cash and stock in the biggest iPhone-related acquisition to date. The deal will create a powerhouse in mobile social gaming, as DeNA is big in Japan, and San Francisco-based Ngmoco has a big position in iPhone games in the U.S. It’s […]
]]>Japan’s DeNA said today it is buying Ngmoco for up to $400 million in cash and stock in the biggest iPhone-related acquisition to date.

The deal will create a powerhouse in mobile social gaming, as DeNA is big in Japan, and San Francisco-based Ngmoco has a big position in iPhone games in the U.S. It’s a big payday for Ngmoco, which was founded in the spring of 2008 by former Electronic Arts executive Neil Young (pictured standing with a bottle of champagne).

Ngmoco’s shareholders will receive $300 million in cash and securities, plus up to $100 million more if it hits performance targets through Dec. 31, 2011.

“In Ngmoco and its team we see a lot of the same talent and dynamic traction that we have in the Japanese market, making the merger a perfect fit for us,” said Tomoko Namba, founder and chief executive of DeNA. “This acquisition cements DeNA’s leadership position in the U.S. We’re building the largest mobile social gaming platform in the world and populating it with incredible games and services.”

The deal sets up a big clash in social games. DeNA clearly has its sites set on dominating the social game market by attacking it from mobile, while social game maker Zynga has the same aim through its dominance in Facebook games. While mobile has gotten off to a slower start in the U.S. than Facebook, the situation is reversed in Japan, where DeNA is on a billion-dollar revenue run rate because of strong growth of Japan’s mobile social game portals such as DeNA’s Mobage-town.

In the U.S., the market is smaller, but Ngmoco says its games are played more than 50 million minutes a day and have been downloaded more than 60 million times. Ngmoco has had more than 20 top-ten games, and its Plus+ social game network has more than 13.5 million registered users. In September, Ngmoco said it would launch Google Android games starting in the fourth quarter.

In addition to Young, Ngmoco’s founders include Bob Stevenson, Alan Yu and Joe Keene. Young said that DeNA’s acquisition will help accelerate Ngmoco’s vision for games. In the U.S. and Europe, Ngmoco will be responsible for advancing DeNA’s “X-Device, X-Border” strategy, or its global expansion plan. Namba founded DeNA in 1999. Disney has also made its move into iPhone games with the acquisition of Tapulous, but that was reportedly for far less money.

Because of its potential in the hot iPhone market, Ngmoco was able to raise $40 million. Ngmoco’s investors include Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Norwest Venture Partners, Maples Investments and Institutional Venture Partners. Google Ventures was reportedly an investor, but that deal was never announced.

DeNA has been on its own investment and acquisition spree, buying GameView and investing in Astro Ape.

Getting content noticed is a challenge for everyone making apps. Join us at DiscoveryBeat 2010 and hear secrets from top industry executives about how to break through and profit in the new cross-platform app ecosystem. From metrics to monetization, we’ll take an in depth look at the best discovery strategies and why they’re working. See the full agenda here. The conference takes place on October 18 at the Mission Bay Conference Center in San Francisco. To register, click here. Hurry though. Tickets are limited, and going fast.

]]>http://venturebeat.com/2010/10/12/japans-dena-buys-iphone-game-publisher-ngmoco-for-up-to-400m/feed/40219524Japan’s DeNA buys iPhone game publisher Ngmoco for up to $400MJapan’s DeNA invests in U.S. social game firm Astro Apehttp://venturebeat.com/2010/09/24/japans-dena-invests-in-u-s-social-game-firm-astro-ape/
http://venturebeat.com/2010/09/24/japans-dena-invests-in-u-s-social-game-firm-astro-ape/#commentsFri, 24 Sep 2010 23:00:30 +0000http://venturebeat.com/?p=215835Japan’s big mobile social game company, DeNA, is announcing today it has made an investment in U.S. social game company Astro Ape. DeNA last week purchased GameView, another social game company. The investment in Astro Ape, which has had success as a social game developer, is part of DeNA’s “X-device, X-border” strategy. That means the […]
]]>Japan’s big mobile social game company, DeNA, is announcing today it has made an investment in U.S. social game company Astro Ape.

DeNA last week purchased GameView, another social game company. The investment in Astro Ape, which has had success as a social game developer, is part of DeNA’s “X-device, X-border” strategy. That means the company plans to be on any device in all parts of the world.

Astro Ape is based in Edison, N.J., and has created games such as Office Heroes for Apple’s mobile operating system, iOS. Now it will develop games for DeNA’s MiniNation mobile game platform.

DeNA, headed by Tomoko Namba, has also acquired IceBreak and made a strategic investment in Aurora Feint. That means that the company is one of the most aggressive buyers in the North American mobile game market. DeNA created a $27.5 million incubation fund for social games this summer. Namba said her company is just getting started in the U.S. Thanks to revenues from its Mobage-town social gaming community, DeNA’s 2010 revenue run-rate is $1 billion. It certainly looks like DeNA is in a race with Zynga to be the dominant player in social games.

Astro Ape was founded by Christopher Cheung, Chieh Huang, and William Fong in March, 2009. The studio has five employees and is adding a couple more in the next two weeks. The company is self-funded.

]]>http://venturebeat.com/2010/09/24/japans-dena-invests-in-u-s-social-game-firm-astro-ape/feed/4215835Japan’s DeNA invests in U.S. social game firm Astro ApeScoreloop to provide social platform for mobile games on Taiwanese carrierhttp://venturebeat.com/2010/08/17/scoreloop-scores-deal-to-provide-social-game-mobile-platform-to-taiwanese-carrier/
http://venturebeat.com/2010/08/17/scoreloop-scores-deal-to-provide-social-game-mobile-platform-to-taiwanese-carrier/#commentsTue, 17 Aug 2010 14:00:12 +0000http://venturebeat.com/?p=206349Scoreloop has scored an interesting deal for its social platform for mobile games. The Munich-based company is announcing today that it will provide a social gaming hub to Taiwanese phone carrier Chunghwa Telecom. That will help Scoreloop’s mobile social game platform reach millions of users in the fast-growing Asian mobile game market. The deal with […]
]]>Scoreloop has scored an interesting deal for its social platform for mobile games. The Munich-based company is announcing today that it will provide a social gaming hub to Taiwanese phone carrier Chunghwa Telecom. That will help Scoreloop’s mobile social game platform reach millions of users in the fast-growing Asian mobile game market.

The deal with Chungwha’s Spring House Entertainment division is the first where Scoreloop is licensing its platform to a mobile carrier, which wants gamers to flock to its mobile gaming site and then stay there because of social networking features that are built into it. Scoreloop provides the social game platform, akin to a white-label technology provider, that Spring House Entertainment can market as its own branded social hub.

“We’re uniting users with one social gaming platform,” said Spring House Entertainment executive vice president Leo Lee. “Scoreloop’s solution surpasses similar initiatives such as Apple’s Game Center both in features and reach, as they let us bring this to users across multiple platforms. We’re thrilled to bring these features to developers and users alike.”

Chungwha’s Spring House Entertainment is the first of a number of potential customers for Scoreloop in the Asian mobile market, said Marc Gumpinger, chief executive of Scoreloop, in an interview. Scoreloop’s platform lets game developers build social features into their games. Those features include leaderboards, multiplayer challenges, and cross promotions. It’s often easier for developers to “socialize” their games with Scoreloop than it is to build the functionality themselves. So many game developers have adopted the Scoreloop platform on the iPhone and Android that the company says it is getting more than 100,000 new players per day.

Game developers wanting their games to be represented in the Spring House Entertainment hub, will have to use Scoreloop’s software development kit, which will be customized for Spring House Entertainment.

“Everyone wants to have a Game Center like Apple,” Gumpinger said. “This relationship is the blueprint for that.”

The whole point is to take the inherent virality of a platform such as Facebook and bring it into social games. The first group of games that will enter Spring House Entertainment’s Taiwan App Market with Scoreloop social features will be from game developers Dreamsky Technology, Boolba Labs and Goodteam Studio. When users play games from those studios, the games will be able to suggest other games in the Scoreloop platform. In this fashion, Scoreloop is attacking the fundamental problem of app discovery: it’s becoming harder and harder to get noticed when there are hundreds of thousands of competing apps. One of the best ways to cut through the noise is through social recommendations. That’s the topic at our upcoming DiscoveryBeat conference in San Francisco on Oct. 18.

Scoreloop has 35 employees and has raised more than $3 million in funding. Rivals include Aurora Feint, Ngmoco, and PapayaMobile. More than 2,500 developers are using Scoreloop’s technology.

]]>http://venturebeat.com/2010/08/17/scoreloop-scores-deal-to-provide-social-game-mobile-platform-to-taiwanese-carrier/feed/1206349Scoreloop to provide social platform for mobile games on Taiwanese carrier